


Red Sky at Morning

by voodoochild



Category: Carnivale
Genre: Early Work, F/M, Sibling Incest, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-06
Updated: 2011-03-06
Packaged: 2017-10-16 03:45:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Justin ruminates on his sister on the final morning. Mild spoilers for the finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Sky at Morning

**Author's Note:**

> Written a very long time ago and salvaged from an old LJ comm. Apologies for the crap Russian, blame Babelfish.

She tastes like emotion.

It’s always been like this between us, ever since that first time she lay beneath me and I licked acceptance and surrender from her skin. Every place my mouth meets her body, I can taste a memory of us.

 _(“Irina, take care of the baby.”)_

Her forehead is safety, the way she held me tight on a riverbank and whispered that nothing would hurt me anymore. Father gripping my hair harshly as he tried in vain to force his way into my mind – realizing when it didn’t work that I was the son he would come to fear. Irina screaming for him to stop, and throwing a glass at him when he wouldn’t let go of me, kissing my forehead in reassurance, just like she has done so many times. Like she does now.

 _(“You are forgiven.”)_

Her mouth is salvation, cutting off my shouts and prayers of deliverance, baptizing and healing me all at once. The innocent way she bites her lip when embarrassed, or in concentration, that makes me want to soothe the abused flesh with my own. Irina now crouched down the length of my body, mouth on the skin of my stomach, and I have to shut out memories of the false women she sent me. False prophets, seeing their own destruction through my eyes. It drives them mad, you know. Not my Irina.

 _(“I will show you things . . . wonderful, terrible things.”)_

Her neck is danger, walking the razor’s edge between my baser instincts to bite down until she screams, and the knowledge that she would hate me for it. The knowledge that I have done so, and she has matched my passion with her own, raking her nails down my back. Scarlet letters joining scarlet lash marks of fervent penance. Irina drawing out a growl from my lips as she takes me in hand, those squared-off nails walking the line between pain and pleasure.

 _(“I can’t believe you said that!”)_

Her collarbone is laughter, the way she can’t hold in her giggling when anything touches her in that ticklish spot. Memories of her smiles and amusement, both at my expense and at my urging. Her surprised shout of laughter as I roll her beneath me and feather kisses along the line where her shoulder meets her chest. The skin there flushes red in the blush I know and love so well, and she wrinkles her nose in the distaste that her skin has betrayed her again.

 _(“Alexei, nyet! Close the door!”)_

Her breasts are discovery, and the fact that I still go shock-still at the sight of them, just like I did the first time I caught her post-shower at thirteen. She was nearly a woman, a few days shy of her sixteenth birthday, and I’d been mesmerized by the slow beads of water pooling between her breasts and falling down her back. Irina still gives me that familiar half-gasp of shock even now, as I tease the rounded flesh with my teeth and tongue, leaving angry marks on white skin.

 _(“It was just the flu.”)_

Her stomach is the unknown, the knowledge that she could carry a life within her, and the thankfulness that I haven’t left permanent evidence of my desires on her. Despite that, it is my fondest wish to see her grow round with a child of mine, but I know the effect it would have. She would end up like our mother, so far gone with madness that she would not even know my name any longer. Irina cannot go to that fate, no matter how willingly she would submit – would surrender, like how her hips cradle mine.

 _(“I always said I’d follow the truth, no matter where it led.”)_

Her sex is pure and undiluted lust, the basest of my sins, but the evidence that I am not alone in my crimes – she is with me, as she always will be. Her eyes lock with mine as I thrust into her, only breaking the gaze to throw her head back in that high keen I could listen to forever. She is pure crimson heat, the fire to my ice, and it is all I can do to keep from being consumed by her. Not that that would be a terrible fate, but it is said that in obsession lies madness, and I need all the sanity I can find. And I find it in her.

 _(“You are acting like a child.”)_

Her thighs are youth, the way she can turn me into a teenager again with the rise of a hemline, and the fact that she knows she can. Oh yes, Irina knows full well what effect the sight of her bare legs does to me, and my head drops to her neck in defeat as she wraps them around me. My grip on her thighs is most likely leaving marks, but I have never particularly cared who sees my claim on her. Because she is mine, as much as I am hers.

 _(“Turn it back, Lord!”)_

Her knees are pain, constellations of bloody penance mapped out on the pale flesh, crimson lines bisecting the faint dusting of freckles. My gift, the secret knowledge of a person’s darkest sins, has never worked on her. It does not need to. Her own body betrays her sins – just as mine does. She can read every single transgression written into my back, because she has inscribed most of them herself. And I can read hers, written across the soft skin of her knees. I am powerless to ease her suffering, except for these few moments when I can make her forget everything except for the way I feel inside her.

 _(“We will build it together.”)_

Her feet are support, the base of the solid foundation I lean upon when I lose my way in the woods, away from her and all sanity. When I lost my God, I went looking for him in the wilderness. I thought I’d found him again on a riverbank, but what I truly found was her, just as I always have. She is my salvation and my redemption. My way, my truth, and my life. And she will thoroughly damn me, just as I have damned her.

 _(“I’ve always known what you need.”)_

What I need is her, more than I care to admit. She is my death and rebirth, beginning and end. I lose myself in her, and she helps me find my way back. She is passion and moderation – red and white – like the lash marks of my back and the stained glass of her knees. She reflects both her namesakes: Iris, the goddess and messenger, who embodies rainbows; and Irina, “one who finds peace”. She is my goddess. She is my peace. In her, peace is with me. I collapse onto her, finding release as she falls apart under me.

Morning has always brought shame and guilt. Muttered apologies and the occasional sharp reprimand for leaving telltale marks in visible places. It is always I who has left evidence – she is far too careful to give anyone reason to question our relationship. Not this morning. This is an ending and a beginning. I murmur my love for her into her skin, placing my lips to her shoulder (regret). She does not reproach, and I do not accuse. There is enough blame to share, and we will certainly both be doing penance for this blackest of sins for the rest of our lives.

She says she is going to hell, but oh Irina, not yet. Not before I make my own journey there this day. For did our Lord not bid those he gathered at his left hand to burn in the fires of hell? I am the Lord’s left hand, and I shall gather the unworthy to accompany me on this journey. And she cannot be among those souls. This morning brought not shame and guilt, but acceptance and benediction. Where I am going, she cannot follow. She must not follow, for she will not be sacrificed. Her Judas kiss burns me still, but I know this is how it must be.

“Ya sozhaleyu, Alexei. Ya tol'ko sdelal to, k chemu vy hoteli men'a.”

She speaks suddenly, and I shake my head. Please don’t apologize. I know you only followed your destiny, just as I am following mine right now. I have always followed you, Irina, but now I must follow my own path. The end of my journey will lead me to you, just as it always has. And before I leave you this day, to deliver myself up to my enemies, I make one final request of you, sister of mine.

Do not seek the living among the dead.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Ya sozhaleyu, Alexei. Ya tol'ko sdelal to, k chemu vy hoteli men'a._ \- I'm sorry, Alexei. I only did what you wanted me to.


End file.
